Norman — Two years before ABC’s Extreme Makeover Home Edition contacted Ideal Homes, the company offered its services. They were turned away. Thank you, Ideal was told, but the show picks the builder on its own.
Fast forward two years to December 2009 when the “Extreme Phone Call” comes to the company’s Norman office with one question: Will you build a home for free for a local family in 106 hours, recruit thousands of volunteers and get sub-contractors, restaurants and material suppliers to donate, too? It needs to be done in the worst of Oklahoma weather, too.
And while you’re at it, can you gather up 22,000 pounds of canned food and 800 units of blood? The answer was needed within 24 hours. After all, this is show business.
The answer, obviously, was yes. Proof comes tonight at 7 when ABC airs the episode filmed last month. Ideal Homes, its sub-contractors and others will gather at the University of Central Oklahoma tonight for an “extreme” watch party. Company president Vernon McKown detailed the behind-the-scenes efforts for a Norman business group Friday morning.
“Usually when we build a house, we’re in charge. When we want something to happen, it happens. On this, we were just part of a movie set. Ideal Homes built the house but we were just a cog in the center of the wheel,” McKown said. “Really, the community built the home. There is no way we could have done it by ourselves. Norman is a phenomenal place. I’m not sure it could have happened anywhere else.”
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Ideal enlisted hundreds of volunteers but its subcontractors did the heavy lifting. Unlike in the real construction world, the workers got along and enjoyed being together. Some even shared tools, something unheard of on a jobsite. Instead of using the tradesmen they follow as the butt of their jokes, they jointly enlisted instead the Hollywood prima donnas from the show as the subject of their humor.
“Plumbers and framers and heat and air guys and electricians don’t usually get along in the real world,” McKown said. “But we were doing something that was bigger than any of us.”
It nearly didn’t happen. Challenges from the weather — snow, rain and soggy soil — stalled trucks from the get-go. Twenty-six hundred tons of gravel were needed just to get a road to the site. The 2,800-square-foot ranch home’s foundation was formed from a batch of “superconcrete” mixed by Dolese with help of OU engineers.
More than five dozen framers worked 30 hours straight to get production back on schedule. Roofers worked in a driving rainstorm. A bulldozer was used to get materials to the site. The harder the challenge, the more determined the volunteers became.
“You couldn’t pay them enough to do that and they were out there doing it for free for that family,” McKown said.
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The Skaggs family — Brian, Audra and their children, Merit and Jhett — were chosen from among 15,000 candidates for the free home. They had planned to build a home but used their seed money for their son’s heart transplant and follow-up care. They literally learned their fate moments before the announcement. Ideal workers didn’t get to meet the family until the day the home was revealed to them.
“She was completely overwhelmed,” McKown said of Audra Skaggs’ seeing their home for the first time.
He called the build “awesome” and said they’d do it again. But maybe wait a few years.
“It was a great experience. It was very uplifting, energizing experience.”
Although the Skaggs family got a new home on their Slaughterville land, Ideal and its partners shared some take-home pay.
“It was like a 7-day ropes course for us. There was nothing that could replace the teambuilding we learned,” McKown said. “For us, we got more out of it than the Skaggs’ did.”
Andy Rieger 366-3543 editor@normantranscript.com
